


Half A Person

by coloursflyaway



Series: Kingsman Tumblr Prompts [16]
Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Crying, Heavy Angst, Illnesses, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-15
Updated: 2016-09-15
Packaged: 2018-08-15 06:16:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8045503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coloursflyaway/pseuds/coloursflyaway
Summary: There is still one last thing Harry needs Eggsy to do for him.





	Half A Person

**Author's Note:**

> For a prompt I got on Tumblr: "I need you to leave".  
> I might have gone a bit overboard with the angst, whoops.

“I need you to leave”, Harry and sounds so tired that Eggsy’s heart breaks and breaks and can’t stop breaking. Sounds weak like Eggsy has never heard him before, not even in those last weeks, which seem to take up almost as much space in his mind as the almost-four decades he has spent at Harry’s side do.  
His mentor, best friend, lover, husband; the love of his life is dying, and it’s a thought which Eggsy still can hardly finish without needing to scream and thrash and break down.   
“What?”, he asks instead, because he is supposed to be over this stage of grief by now, or so his therapist tells him, he should try and accept the one thing which will always be unacceptable. “Do you need somethin’? Did that damned nurse forget about your tea again? I swear, I’ll-“

There is an arsenal of insults and threats at the tip of his tongue, ready to be flung at whoever happens to be on duty in the hospital at the moment, but Eggsy doesn’t unleash them, can’t. Because Harry squeezes his fingers ( _weakly, so weakly_ , his brain reminds him needlessly, _almost as if his muscles were rehearsing how it would be to die_ ), thin lips turning up into the frailest, most brittle smile, and Eggsy deflates. He’s angry, oh God, he’s burning up with righteous wrath from within, but his anger can’t ever compete with the helplessness he feels whenever he looks at Harry now, with the desperation, the grief, the love. And he won’t allow their last days to be tainted by something so vile.  
“No, my heart”, Harry says, squeezes Eggsy’s hand again, and breaks him down completely. “The nurses are all wonderful. You know that. It isn’t because of that.”

Part of him knows, hidden away in the corner of his mind, where Eggsy keeps the worst of his memories, the most terrible of thoughts, but he pushes it away as far as possible, because he doesn’t want to imagine denying Harry anything and yet doesn’t know if he could make a sacrifice that large. “Why then?”, Eggsy asks instead; he must be getting tired, because even he can hear the despair in his voice, can taste it on his lips and tongue, bitter and yet so familiar. “Is it the books, do you need somethin’ more to read-“  
“No, Eggsy. It isn’t that either.” Harry’s eyes flutter shut, and like every time this happened since he first heard the words _incurable_ and _cancer_ and _six months, tops_ , Eggsy fears that he won’t be allowed to watch Harry open them once more. He does, though, even if it seems to take longer than it used to, looks up at Eggsy with eyes that still hold the same warmth they did when they first met.   
But it’s not just warmth shining out of them, not only love, but a mixture of emotions Eggsy has seen in his own reflection every time he looks at the mirror.

It’s a split second, nothing more, and Eggsy realises that while he cannot bear to think of Harry speaking his plea out-loud, his husband can’t bring himself to say the words. And realises that he was wrong, that in the end, if it is what Harry wants, there is no sacrifice too vast for him to make.

“Don’t”, he tries anyway, because he needs to make sure, grips Harry’s hand tighter, until he knows the pressure has to be uncomfortable. “Please, don’t. Don’t send me away.”  
Tears come, but roll down his cheeks almost unnoticed; Eggsy blinks them away so he can see Harry clearly, even if just for another moment.    
He paints the strangest picture, looks the same and yet changed. All tension has left his body, leaving Harry almost pliant, his eyes half-lidded and yet open, his lips parted. He looks relieved, and it’s the second worst thought Eggsy has ever had, because Harry should never be relieved to leave him, because Eggsy never wanted to be yet another burden on his husband’s shoulders.   
“I have to”, Harry mutters, a soft and fleeting sound, like wind rustling too-dry leaves, and Eggsy raises their intertwined fingers to his lips and presses kisses all over the other’s knuckles, the paper-thin skin on the back of his hands, the frail wrist, as if he was trying to kiss his love into Harry’s skin. “My heart, I have to. I’m not going to get better, and I can’t allow either of us to waste away any longer. You deserve so much better, always have, and I don’t want you to remember me in an even worse state for the rest of your life.” Harry quirks his lips into a ghost of a smirk, brushes his fingertips across Eggsy’s palm and sends another hot rush of tears down Eggsy’s cheeks, causes the first of many sobs to wreck through him. “Give an old man this last bit of vanity.”

There are no words anymore, nothing but the warmth that still lingers in Harry’s flesh and the grief, which overtakes Eggsy so suddenly he doesn’t think he’ll ever remember how to breathe again. He has known this moment would come in some way or another, a last word, kiss, look, and yet it changes nothing.  
“Please”, he sobs and wishes he could be strong, if not for himself, then for Harry. Because there are tears on the other man’s cheeks too, flowing freely, and Eggsy cannot even reach out to wipe them away, because he would rather chop off his own arm than let go of Harry’s hand. “Let me stay, let me be with you, _let me stay_ -“   
For a moment, he thinks he might have swayed Harry, knows that even so, he would have to leave, but then his husband blinks, sighs, and says, “My dear boy, I can’t. Merlin is coming later this evening to take the – the necessary steps. So I won’t wake up tomorrow. And I cannot ask you to watch, not even if it is what you want now.”

Each word is hardly more than a breath, and yet they cut through Eggsy in a way he never thought possible, tear him to pieces, shattering atom after atom until he knows that there is no way he’ll ever be rebuilt.   
“Merlin?”, he croaks, wishes he could feel angry now, betrayed that it will be Merlin’s face and not his own which Harry will see last. But there is no room next to his imploding heart for anything than a despair, which is too all-encompassing to put into words. “I could do it, _for you_ , I could, Harry, just don’t send me away, not now.”

This time, when Harry smiles, it’s different, earnest and warm and loving and sad, almost the same smile he gave him when they had just been proclaimed a married couple. His fingers slip over Eggsy’s tear-soaked skin when he curls them, squeezes as hard as his dying muscles still allow him to.   
“Oh, my dearest boy, you couldn’t. And even if you could, I couldn’t let you.”  
It’s final, because Eggsy knows that the other is right, just like he is too often, because it’s a decision, it’s what Harry wants, and that is what counts.   
“Please”, he still gasps out between sobs, although he isn’t sure what he is pleading for anymore, if he is praying, if he is cursing. “Please, Harry, babe, _please_ -“  
“I know.”

The hand inside his tugs slightly, and for one horrifying second, Eggsy thinks Harry is pulling away, until he realises that it’s the contrary, that Harry is pulling him closer. He goes willingly, ignores his stumbling feet until he can sink down next to Harry on the mattress, curling up around the other’s frail, broken form; their fingers are still intertwined.   
“I can’t lose you”, he somehow forces out in-between sobs, and Harry tugs on his hand once more, lets Eggsy scoot closer still.   
“You will have to.”  
“But I can’t-“  
“You can.” Harry’s voice is softer like this, more like Eggsy is used to, and it would be calming, if the other’s words weren’t wrecking through him like earthquakes.   
“But I love you”, he mutters, cries, lets his words and tears soak into Harry’s blanket, his shirt, his skin. “I love you so much, and I can’t lose you, not now, not ever, it will kill me too, _I love you_.”  
“And I love you. Always will, my heart, always.”

He sounds calm, and Eggsy hates it, hates that it has to be Harry comforting him once again, and yet knowing that it couldn’t have been any other way; this is them, this is what they have always been, and if their roles were reversed, the words he has choked out would have come from Harry’s lips.   
There are still sobs wrecking through him violently, making him tremble, shake, but they are coming at a slower interval, and even that feels like a betrayal; his body, his mind should never get used to the thought of losing Harry.  
He wants to tell Harry he loves him again, because it’s the truth and nothing but, but doesn’t, because he’d need to repeat it, and repeat it again; there is no number of repetitions that could ever be enough. So Eggsy stays silent, breathes in his husband’s scent, clutches at Harry’s hand and wishes he could say he won’t ever let go.

Their breaths mingle, their lungs find a common rhythm to inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, inhale-   
\- and there is a knock at the door, after what could be thirty seconds or three days and nights, after what will always have been too little time, and Eggsy jerks, the tears, which have dried out, coming back with full force.   
He curls even closer, until there isn’t an atom’s breadth between them, desperate to make these last few seconds last as long as he can. But Harry says his name, whispers it like one would whisper a prayer, and Eggsy knows that this is as difficult for him as it is for the other; it might be the hardest thing he has ever done, but he slowly pulls away, even if every inch between them feels like a mile.   
“Please”, he whispers again when he can see Harry’s eyes, again when he can take in that beloved, age-worn, sickness-riddled face, again when he is standing, their joined hands the only point of contact.

“I need you to leave”, Harry repeats, sounding weak again, every word dripping with tears and sorrow and helplessness, and there is nothing Eggsy wouldn’t do for him. So he leans in and presses their lips together – a last kiss, his mind supplies – and tries to memorise everything. Wishes he had just another moment, another minute, another century.   
“My beautiful, wonderful boy”, Harry mutters against his lips, squeezes Eggsy’s fingers. “Thank you so much for everything. For your companionship, for your trust, your love, for this life I had. All this would have been worth it for just a day with you, and yet I had decades.”  
They’re both crying, some part of Eggsy notices, and yet doesn’t care, he presses another kiss to Harry’s mouth and pulls away so he can look at his husband. Their wedding rings are gleaming in the cold hospital light, tying them together.   
“I love you”, he tells Harry, because it was always the other, who was good at words, never him, something Eggsy never minded up unto this moment. He should tell Harry goodbye and say everything he’ll never get the chance to say again, and yet can’t think of anything else, because anything else has stopped mattering. And maybe, just maybe, that makes his words enough. “I love you. I can't remember not loving you and I won’t stop either, I love you and I’ll love you and maybe there isn’t a forever, but if there is, I’ll love you until then.”

He can hardly see through his tears and yet knows that Harry is smiling, can hear it in his voice when the other says, “I love you too. More than you will ever know, more than I think I ever realised.”  
Says, “Go.”  
_Please_ , the all too familiar plea is on his lips, ready to be whimpered, sobbed out, screamed, but Eggsy swallows it down; he could never be as strong for Harry as the other was for him, but he can be now.   
“I love you”, he says instead, pleads that too, and blinks away the tears to look at Harry one last time. He doesn’t look like the man Eggsy met thirty-eight years ago, doesn’t look like the man he married twenty-three years ago, and yet looks like the man he loves, the man he would have given his life for, had he had the chance.  
“I love you”, he repeats, and squeezes Harry’s hand, hopes that he has left enough love inside the other to carry him over to the other side.   
And lets go.

**Author's Note:**

> In case you want to say hi, send me a prompt, or tell me something nice, you can find me on Tumblr here:  
> [X](http://www.coloursflyaway.tumblr.com)


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